Five Parts Dead

by Tim Pegler

  Pip spots them too: a family of Tammar wallabies, or maybe two mums with joeys. ‘Cool,’ she whispers. ‘Nice one, Dan.’

  The wallabies nibble at the spiky clumps of grass puncturing the stony ground. They tilt onto their front paws and then swing their bodies, landing back on their hind feet, one body length forward. Nibble, swing, nibble, nibble, nibble, swing. One of the joeys stands and scratches its hip with a claw as it chews. It seems to look straight at me.

  Pip’s face is only centimetres from mine. I lean back, watching her. She’s wearing a shoestring singlet top and light cotton pyjama pants. It’s funny, I’ve never really looked at her before—as in checked her out. I do tend to notice most of the girls in class, and make a point of ‘studying the form guide’, as Carlo used to put it. But I never looked at Pip that way. Maybe because she’s Mel’s mate. Maybe because she seems so feisty—as if she’s too busy saving the world or something. She always seemed sort of sexless.

  Not any more. One of the singlet straps threatens to slide off a freckled shoulder. I hold my breath, willing it downwards. Better still, I’d like to help it on its way. I’d like to move over and slip the other strap off, surf my hands down those curves I’ve never noticed before.

  Suddenly I remember I only have a T-shirt and boxers on. Not good.

  Get a grip, Dan. You’re her best mate’s brother. She’s your sister’s friend. It’s not as if anything could ever happen. No way.

  I lurch upright and topple back onto my bed. As I do, the blind hurtles upwards, scaring the crap out of me. The wallabies skip away.

  ‘Sorry! Had to stretch this leg—or what’s left of it.’

  Pip grins and freckles dance. ‘Graceful as ever, Dan.’ She hooks a finger around the dangling singlet strap and pulls it up. ‘Remind me not to take you on any nature shoots. So, what was so odd about your night?’

  ‘Actually, I’ve just remembered I’m a bloke, it’s breakfast time and I’m hungry. D’ya wanna eat?’

  She hurls a pillow at me and then follows as I hobble to the kitchen.

  W: REQUIRE MEDICAL ASSISTANCE

  Bored, bored, bloody bored and it’s only 10.45am. Mum and Dad have pissed off to the bird sanctuary. The girls decided to see how far they could make it along one of the hiking trails. I’m sprawled on the couch, books and magazines strewn around me. So far this morning I’ve bathed, sampled almost everything edible in the kitchen and—community service announcement—even put the dishes away. It feels like the others have been gone a week. I stretch out my good leg, flexing the quad. My whole body is tense, twitchy with inactivity. Bugger it, I’m going for a ‘walk’.

  Dad’s left the key to the lighthouse on the kitchen bench. I swing the key ring around my index finger, debating whether to take it. I know Dad wanted me to wait so we could look inside together but he’s not here. I am and I need something to break the monotony.

  The cottage is surrounded by mustard gravel and sand drifts. There’s no actual garden, just mallee scrub slashed on an angle by the weather—Tammar topiary. Wrens titter and squeak from the tangle of twigs.

  I plod around the back of the house, heading for the lighthouse. It’s sunny today but the tetchy wind cuffs me around the ears to let me know it’s keeping an eye on me.

  Halfway to the lighthouse is a shed. I limp over and speed-read a sign in the doorway: the place was a stable for horses used to haul supplies to the lighthouse.

  Whump! The wind creeps up again and king-hits the shed. Shit! It’s freaking me out, this wind. There are no gentle breezes, just random acts of violence.

  I hear a scrambling, scratching sound and flinch, turning in time to see a rat skitter along a rafter towards the corner of the roof. A rat, Dan. Just a rat. Or maybe one of the rare dunnarts Dad told us to look out for. Why am I so jumpy here?

  It’s the nightmare. Has to be. The goth girl, weeping. Reaching for me. What does it mean? More stuff about the accident?

  Should I have trusted Pip? I really, really don’t want to think about the accident again, let alone talk it over. I’m so sick of reliving that night, searching for something I could have changed.

  What I don’t get is why I survived and the others didn’t. Why me? I’ve had plenty of close calls and near misses already. Any one of them could have claimed me. At last count I’ve used up five chances and I’m only sixteen. Barney has started calling me ‘the cat’ because he reckons I must have nine lives. I wish he wouldn’t. It’s no joke. I’m still here and guys like Carlo are gone, never to joke or fart or muck around ever again. How many chances did Carlo get? Or Boris? It doesn’t seem right.

  I halt, leaning on my crutches. It feels like roofing nails are being belted into the top of my busted foot and I’ve barely travelled a hundred metres. Part of me wants to go back to the cottage, chug painkillers and zone out for a while. Another part doesn’t want to risk sleep. I don’t want to see that girl again.

  Transferring my weight to my good leg, I swing the crutches forward and get moving. Only two hundred metres or so to the lighthouse and then I’ll be able to have a rest.

  By the time I get to the tower, I’m sweaty and lightheaded. My armpits ache from the crutches and my foot is hosting a pyrotechnics convention. A crow glares at me from the step as if it’s the official doorman. I swing my cast at it and it scuttles away, cursing me.

  With a bit of forceful persuasion I get the crusty lock open and hang it on the bolt. As I open the door, the wind gives it a kick. It smacks into my shoulder and I overbalance, tumbling inside. Kwammm! The door slams behind me, the impact reverberating up the tower.

  Awesome. One crutch on the floor, another on the ground outside. I crawl to the stairs, dragging my lone crutch with me, and sit on a step to wait for the throbbing to ease. The door rattles, as if someone’s trying to get inside. There’s a low howl in the tower. Goosebumps erupt on my arms.

  For God’s sake, take a chill pill, Dan. Repeat after me, it-is-just-the-wind. I exhale like the air-brakes on a semi-trailer and take my bearings.

  I’m in a circular room with white-washed walls. A chart of nautical flags hangs on one wall beside a cabinet of lighthouse memorabilia and a dusty roll-top desk. Over the door, a freckled brass plaque carries the words Lucem Spero Clariorem. It looks like Latin but I’ve no idea what it might mean. Clariorem looks vaguely like clarion, which is a trumpet, isn’t it? Could it mean ‘Loosen up your trumpet’…Nah. Maybe Mum or Dad might know.

  Grabbing the stair handrail, I heave myself upright and hop across to the desk. It’s a monster of a thing; I need both hands just to lift the lid.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. There’s bugger-all inside it apart from a couple of ink bottles, a compass and a dusty, leather-bound logbook.

  A Logbook Kept at the Cape Nicolas

  Light House by

  KM Wilton Head Keeper

  June 1858 to January 1865

  Dad told us about this guy during the drive from Melbourne. Loves a captive audience, my old man. Wilton was the retired sea captain chosen to oversee the building of the lighthouse. He quit seafaring when his wife and one of his twin daughters drowned in a shipwreck, leaving him to raise the surviving girl alone. Grief-stricken, he swore to save others from a similar fate.

  The logbook is pretty dull to begin with: detailed reports on the weather and how tough it was getting building materials here because boats couldn’t dock safely anywhere nearby. A jetty had to be built about five kilometres away at the base of steep cliffs. Then everything had to be hauled up the cliffs by rope and carted in wheelbarrows as horses weren’t supplied until later. There were three families: Captain Wilton and his teenage daughter; the second keeper, Mr Bellows, and his wife; and the third keeper, Mr Sutton, his wife and four young children.

  They arrived in winter and pitched their tents at a place they called Nolan’s Return—the cliff tops above the jetty where a sealer named Nolan used to camp—while their cottages were being built at the Cape. It took th
e keepers weeks to get all the barrels of oil and flour, plus the timber and other gear up the cliffs. It’s not surprising they didn’t have the time or energy to walk to and from the cottages every day.

  When the captain hiked up to the lighthouse to inspect the builders’ progress, he found the tower was almost complete but the lantern hadn’t been assembled. He seems impatient, frustrated he still couldn’t warn seafarers of the deadly seas. Lives had already been lost at the Cape, or the government wouldn’t have paid for a lighthouse. The delay seems to eat away at the fretting captain.

  Then a schooner arrived with a Marine Board official, dispatched to inspect the new lighthouse. The captain made the bureaucrat climb the cliff and walk uphill to the light station.

  I bet he didn’t have to ask twice for horses after that.

  The day after this visit, the winter turned cruel.

  JUNE 19

  Throughout this twenty-four hours strong gales from the NNW varying to the WNW with heavy rain and lightning. Today not able to get anything up the hill owing to the inclement weather.

  JUNE 20

  Strong gales from the westward with hail and rain in squalls. All the tents wet and cold and a very high sea at the landing place.

  Examined our stores and found them very much eaten by mice. Salvaged the remaining perishable items and shifted them up to the tents.

  The three families were on the island an entire month before another boat arrived with a horse and dray, hay and extra timber for building a stable and fences.

  How long did it take them to haul the horse up the cliff?

  I pause, trying to sense how the families would have been faring. The men, spending day after day dragging and lifting stores. The women, cooking, striving to keep themselves and their possessions dry and warm—and constantly alert about the Sutton children straying into danger. The cottages must have seemed luxurious after all the weeks they survived in tents.

  Even now I couldn’t believe that the three houses are only metres apart. Why would they build them so close? What if they didn’t get on?

  Sure enough, that’s exactly what the captain records in his elegant handwriting.

  JULY 12

  Mrs Bellows commenced with the assistance of her husband to call me everything but a gentleman. I told Mrs Bellows if she did not keep her slandering tongue from me, I would complain to the Marine Board in order to have them taken from the island. At 8, a strong wind & cloudy from the NNE. At midnight heavy squalls.

  Twenty-four hours later the Bellows household is causing problems again. When called by the captain to help install the lighthouse lantern, Mr Bellows grumbled:

  He told me he had not got his breakfast and

  would not work night and day for me or no man.

  How’s that for form? Only three families and one of them won’t pull its weight. The captain must have been ropeable. I mean, if you’re in command, who do you talk to? Where do you go to get stuff off your chest? He only had his daughter and his logbook to confide in. If he wrote to people on the mainland, it might be months before he got a response.

  Then the captain’s life went from bad to worse. On August 12 he wrote:

  At 2pm a sad accident happened to myself.

  Coming towards the buildings about two hundred

  yards from the lighthouse I tripped over a stump,

  pierced my right eye cutting away the lower eyelid.

  I am afraid I will lose the sight of the eye.

  I flick through the next few pages. The injury must be pretty bad, judging from the way the captain’s careful handwriting becomes erratic and smudged. He starts cutting corners too, using ‘ditto’ in his weather reports— even letting others compile his precious log. If that isn’t enough proof that he’s in dire straits, he records the equivalent of a 000 emergency call, hoisting a signal flag from the lighthouse: Whisky—require medical assistance.

  Three weeks later the handwriting changes again. Another keeper, maybe Mr Bellows as second in charge, writes:

  Captain Wilton very unwell today. His mind is wandering at times.

  A boat passes—but too far away to signal. The captain and his daughter must have been freaking out.

  SEPTEMBER 11

  This day Captain Wilton scarcely can speak. He is apparently dying.

  SEPTEMBER 12

  Began with moderate winds and fine clear weather. Wind at south. At 4, wind SE. At 6–11 put out the lights. At 8 wind NE by N. At noon NE. Captain Wilton still alive but appears to be going fast. At 5h 45m lighted up…

  SEPTEMBER 13

  Begins fresh breezes and cloudy weather ESE. At 4 ditto with wind shifting to the northward. Put out the lights at 6h 10m. Wind NE. At 8 ditto weather. At 11h 45m Captain Wilton died. At noon ditto weather. At 4, wind north. At 5h 48m lighted up…

  I’m gobsmacked. There were only ten people in this godforsaken place, ten! The head keeper, the boss, died from an infected wound only months after they arrived and his death barely rated a mention in the logbook! All we get is a note in the margin that the other keepers buried the captain near the path to the lighthouse. And Mr Bellows reported changing the signal flags to Victor—require assistance. The lazy prick must have been desperate for a replacement keeper so he didn’t have to work extra shifts.

  I close the log and teeter over to the desk to put it away. The wind moans around the lighthouse and I shudder, thinking of the captain’s daughter, orphaned and waiting for a boat to rescue her. Where would she go with no friends or family to turn to? I mean, the loneliness here is absolute. It’s totally crushing. No wonder people go mad…or can’t see a way forward. My pulse pounds. My breathing is shallow and urgent. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I get to the door and shove it open. Retrieve my fallen crutch and plod swing, plod swing, plod swing, gaining speed until I’m lurching down the hill to the cottage, way too fast for a cripple, but hey, who’d give a rat’s if I fall?

  My foot fires volleys of protest along my leg, into my hip. My armpits ache. I struggle to the bathroom, throw back a handful of painkillers and stumble to my bedroom.

  I’d give anything to talk to someone right now. Anything. Anyone. No one.

  I pray to the drugs. Bring on the black.

  Please.

  K: DESIRE TO COMMUNICATE

  The girls shake me awake. The room spirals. I hear Mel’s voice: ‘Wake up, slacker! You’re sleeping your holiday away.’

  And Pip: ‘Go easy on him, Mel.’

  I unshackle myself from another ugly dream, grimace, blink and glance towards the foot of my bed. Nothing there. Then I spot my crumpled reflection in the window opposite. I look like a ghost.

  Pip takes charge. ‘Mel, would you mind getting some water?’ Pip waits for Mel to leave and then stoops and looks into my eyes. ‘Are you okay? Did you take something?’

  The room careens like the ferry. I lean forward, resting my head in my hands to steady myself. ‘Painkillers… maybe a few too many.’

  My words slur but Pip seems to understand. ‘You look awful,’ she says. ‘Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘I…I don’t…’

  Mel prances back into the room with the water, sloshing some on my knees.

  ‘My God,’ she trills, ‘did you get on the turps or something?’

  ‘Why don’t you piss off? Go on. Both of you.’

  Pip recoils as if I’ve slapped her. I hate myself for the hurt I see in her eyes. She opens her mouth as if she’s going to give me a serve but holds fire and backs away, mute. Mel rolls her eyes and follows Pip from the room.

  The wind slaps the window and groans, triggering a memory from my dream. I shake my head, trying to dislodge the image. A dark room, a grey-bearded man on a low bed, his forehead bandaged and his body contorted with pain. I reckon it must be Captain Wilton but why… why am I having these God-awful dreams? What is it about this joint?

  Dad calls me to join the others in the kitchen. Mum and Dad believe in regular fa
mily dining—at least one sit-down meal together every week. It’s not always easy to organise, what with Dad’s weird hours and Mel’s triathlon training, but it’s a fixture. Not negotiable. Mum always raves on about how kids that eat with their families have healthier diets and stronger immune systems—I know the speech off by heart—but she admitted a while back that there’s another agenda. These get-togethers are her way of keeping the four of us connected and in tune but, ever since the accident, they’ve been far from harmonious.

  I steel myself and enter the kitchen. Mel glares at me. I do my best to block any mental message she beams my way but I needn’t bother. It’s pretty clear what she’s thinking. Pip won’t even look at me.

  I sigh, tramp to the stove and lean towards the steaming saucepan, inhaling deeply. Not a good idea. The pasta looks sensational but the thick aroma of garlic, olives and anchovies makes me want to throw up. I excuse myself, blaming a migraine I don’t have, and retreat to my room, feeling guilty as hell. Just because I’m having a shit holiday I don’t need to spoil it for the others. Although if Mel was to have a crap time that might make me feel… nah. Even I’m not that vindictive.

  I try to read a novel I was given for Christmas, some wham-bam bounty hunter thing, but can’t focus. The letters shimmy, refusing to sit still and make words. I switch off the lamp and close my eyes but can’t sleep either. Instead, I think of the captain, feverish and frantic, battling to survive the infection. Determined to live, even without his eye, for the sake of his daughter, and for the sailors he swore to protect. A dedicated man dying a lingering, tormented death simply because he stumbled. Death by wrong-footed, rotten luck.

  And I think of the guys, my guys, loud and larger than life. Aaron—charismatic and confident. Carlo—the class joker, loved by everyone. And big-hearted Boris, the go-to man whenever you needed a hand. Gone in an instant. No second chances. Death by recklessness, overconfidence or stupidity. Maybe all of the above.